Excerpt
Excerpt: Book II. The Beginnings ff Modern Science: The studies of the present book cover the progress of science from the close of the Roman period in the fifth century A.D. to about the middle of the eighteenth century. In tracing the course of events through so long a period, a difficulty becomes prominent which everywhere besets the historian in less degree-a difficulty due to the conflict between the strictly chronological and the topical method of treatment. We must hold as closely as possible to the actual sequence of events, since, as already pointed out, one discovery leads on to another. But, on the other hand, progressive steps are taken contemporaneously in the various fields of science, and if we were to attempt to introduce these in strict chronological order we should lose all sense of topical continuity.

Table of Contents
CONTENTS
BOOK II
CHAPTER I. SCIENCE IN THE DARK AGE
CHAPTER II. MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE AMONG THE ARABIANS
CHAPTER III. MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE IN THE WEST
CHAPTER IV. THE NEW COSMOLOGY--COPERNICUS TO KEPLER AND GALILEO
CHAPTER V. GALILEO AND THE NEW PHYSICS
CHAPTER VI. TWO PSEUDO-SCIENCES--ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY
CHAPTER VII. FROM PARACELSUS TO HARVEY
CHAPTER VIII. MEDICINE IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
CHAPTER IX. PHILOSOPHER-SCIENTISTS AND NEW INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING
CHAPTER X. THE SUCCESSORS OF GALILEO IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE
CHAPTER XI. NEWTON AND THE COMPOSITION OF LIGHT
CHAPTER XII. NEWTON AND THE LAW OF GRAVITATION
CHAPTER XIII. INSTRUMENTS OF PRECISION IN THE AGE OF NEWTON
CHAPTER XIV. PROGRESS IN ELECTRICITY FROM GILBERT AND VON GUERICKE TO FRANKLIN
CHAPTER XV. NATURAL HISTORY TO THE TIME OF LINNAEUS